Two weeks ago Bob and I were headed to Kalispell, Montana.  For a change of scenery, we drove past Libby Dam, and through the town of Eureka.  Imagine my surprise when we discovered it was the Eureka Outdoor Quilt Show that very day!

See the girl in the yellow vest?  She was part of the Quilt Police!  I guess there really are Quilt Police.

There were more than 450 quilts displayed around town.

And Eureka isn’t a very big town.

But it sure is charming.

Great looking new buildings.

Lots of “Western” themed quilts in the show.

You’ll see another member of the Quilt Police in this photo.  They were everywhere, but it wasn’t an unruly crowd, so they didn’t have much to do.

The quilts looked fabulous out in the sun.

I love this center medallion with the delectable mountain blocks around it.

There is a lot of work in the medallion quilt!

I recognize this Sunbonnet Sue and Sam quilts as having been made from an Eleanor Burns pattern.  I did one myself years ago.

Tennessee Waltz is always impressive.  You see curves even though there really aren’t any!

This quilter really achieved a “fractured” look with her choice of color placement.

The edge of this Double Four-Patch really adds interest to the design.

A pretty Picket Fence border here.

In my opinion, brights and black always look good together.

Hollyhocks and nighttime sky?

Lovely and interesting star quilt.

This block brought a smile to my face!

Another great center medallion block.

And another Tennessee Waltz.

I believe this Center Diamond quilt was done by an Amish woman from nearby Rexford, Montana.

Isn’t this unusual and pretty?

Believe it or not, this is a new quilt.  The quilt maker really captured the feel of an old wool quilt.

Interesting Nine-Patch setting.

I love the use of color here.

Lovely cross stitch.

Look at the amazing hand quilting on this quilt.

And don’t you love the graphic design of the Jigsaw Puzzle quilts?

This Bow Tie quilt is newly made, but made from vintage feedsacks.  It reminds me of my Tie One On quilt.

It’s amazing how graphic a simple Nine-Patch can look when set on point like this.

At the end of town is a public park filled with old buildings from the area.

They were ALL decked out with quilts.

The quilt at the top of the schoolhouse won the People’s Choice Award.

The old library.

It looked like a picture postcard!

Even the train station was decked out.

I think these two guys are doing their Lewis and Clark impression…”We proceeded on.”

There were quilts no matter what direction you looked.

It was a bit windy, but everything stayed secure.

Layers of quilt….

The irregular ends of the sashing strips on the Tulip Quilt are very interesting.

Hunter’s Star.  I’m going to be teaching this at our Retreat this fall.

This Broken Star with Lillies is a stunner.

Of course I couldn’t resist the Thirties Sampler.

The Flying Geese sashings on this quilt are so nice–and the quilting is very special.

I’m a sucker for Pinwheel quilts.

This pile of quilts was in the General Store.

I was delighted to see Jackie Robinson at the show.  This is just one of the quilts she had displayed.

This vintage Nine-Patch in a strippy setting looks like it was well loved and well used.

More Pinwheels.  This time with an interesting alternate block setting.

I think String Quilts are my new favorites!

Fabulous Art Deco design.

After two hours of looking at quilts, I could have used a “Moosage,” but it was time to head down the road!

I’m so far behind on my posting, but I just have to share these wonderful quilt with you.

I love historical villages, and we were lucky enough to hear about Kolona Historical Village while we were in Iowa.

And even luckier that in one of their TWO quilt galleries, they were having a display of Depression Era quilts!

Like this beautifully embroidered and hand quilted basket quilt.

I thought the border was stunning!

These blocks really reminded me of the Kate Greenaway children that the original Sunbonnet Sue is based on.

I loved that she was doing all kinds of chores, including harvest!

How’s this for a Dresden Plate.  And who says they didn’t use orange in the Thirties!?!

This sweet little doll quilt was made special with a scalloped border.

Postage Stamp quilt like this one fascinate me.  Even the white background is pieced 1″ squares.

This Trip Around the World quilt was probably a kit.

This is the same star pattern as the first quilt I ever hand quilted!

I thought the applique and quilting were superb on this quilt.  I don’t think I’ve seen this pattern before.

The salmon pink in this Grandmother’s Flower Garden is a bit unusual.

Another Flower Garden.

This quilt is from a Nancy Page Quilt Club serial design.  Each week instructions for a new flower was printed in the newspaper.

I love how this maker coordinated her prints in the birds and flowers of each block.

You can see another Garden Bouquet quilt on the foot of this bed.

This beautiful design is from Marie Webster, who contributed quilts to Better Homes and Gardens Magazine for years.  She also ran her own mail order company selling patterns and kits.

I thought this bluework quilt was charming, but loved the bed skirt even more!

The traditional Sun Bonnet Sue.

What a pretty orange and blue print.  ;-)

Dogwoods.  I’m not sure, but I think this might also be a Marie Webster design.

A beautiful Ohio Rose.  This quilt is on my list of “to make” quilts.

I’m not sure of the name of this quilt pattern.  Anyone?

There were even some feed sack dresses and aprons on display.

Quite stylish, don’t you think?

I have a crocheted apron like this!

You might be poor, but you could still look good!

The staff here was wonderful.  If you’re anywhere close, I suggest you visit!

I was so lucky that one of the temporary exhibits at the Vesterheim Museum was  a quilt show!  These were quilts made by area Norwegian/Americans.

I love signature quilts, and they had a lot of them!

This was a fundraising quilt made by the Big Canoe Lutheran Church women.

Members of the congregation paid five or ten cents to have their name included in the quilt, then it was raffled off.

This quilt was made in the early 1930’s in Decorah.

It was a fundraiser for the hospital auxiliary there.

I love the green-on-white and white-on-green combination and the circle quilting at the corners of the blocks.

This quilt was made by the Highland Lutheran Church Ladies Aid Society.

It was purchased by Pastor Holie, who served the church from 1897 to 1915 .

It was used for years on his daughter, Olga’s, bed.

When Olga passed away, her daughter had it draped on her coffin to represent the community in which she was raised.

This Wagon Wheel signature quilt was made by the Baldwin Lutheran Church’s Ladies Aid Society.

It was a gift to the pastor.

This quilt was quilted by twelve year old Ellen Knudson in 1865.  It had been pieced by her mother and grandmother.

This Ocean Waves quilt was made by Nellie Long in 1878.

Ingeborg Hanson made this quilt in 1870 for a Ladies Aid raffle.  Her sister-in-law, Anna, held the winning ticket.  The funds were used to help build the Cedar Valley Lutheran Church.  Many congregations had Ladies Aid Societies before they had church buildings.  Through quilts and other efforts, women made significant contributions to church budgets.  The stems and leaves on this quilt would have been green when it was made, but green was a fugitive dye and has faded to a light tan.

Mathea Norde started this quilt while she waited for John Wrolstad to return from the Civil War.  John served with the 15th Wisconsin Volunteer Regiment, also known as the Scandinavian Regiment.  After the war, he and Mathea married and had twelve children.

I was surprised by the large amount of yellow used in this quilt.

This log cabin quilt was made by Mary Haugen in the late nineteenth century.

It won first place in the Minnesota State Fair.

Clara Rikansrud made this quilt in 1922.

It was a graduation present for her son, Aurthur.

This quilt honors the twenty pioneer women members of the Highland Lutheran Church.

Margurite Paulsrud and Olaf Rossing married on June 20, 1929.  One week later, Olaf was ordained as a Lutheran minister and the couple moved to Bagley, Minnesota, to serve their first parish.  Before they left, Marguirte’s mother and aunt presented her with this crazy quilt dressing gown.  They thought she needed something  warm for Minnesota and something nice as a pastor’s wife.  In 1937 they presented her with the matching lap robe.

This crazy quilt dressing gown was made by Helena Rossing around 1900.  It is embroidered with Bible verses in both English and Norwegian.

This quilt, whose blocks represent the Norwegian flag, might have been made in 1914 when Norway gained its independence.

A modern Norwegian flag quilt being raffled to benefit the museum.

The next three modern quilts were made to represent Rosemaling, the Norwegian decorative painting style usually seen on wooden items.

Lucky for me, one of the temporary exhibits at the Vesterheim Museum in Decorah was on area quilts.

The squares on this quilt are simple, but the embroidery was beautiful.

At the top it says, “My Uncles, Aunts and Cousins/Made By Lena Wernson/Quandahl, Iowa.”

I wonder if she made all the blocks.  The writing on them differs, so she may have asked her relatives to each embroider a block.

Of she may have had them write on a block and she did the embroidery.

I guess we’ll never know for sure.

At least she signed and dated it!

Do you know what a bed turning is?  You’ll often find them at quilt shows.  A bed is piled high with quilts, and at a set time, the quilts are turned back one at a time to reveal the quilts underneath.  At the Northwest Quilting Expo, the Latimer Quilt and Textile Museum folks were there with a booth, and they did a wonderful bed turning of recent acquisitions.

But, before I show you the quilts from the bed, you must see this.  This balloon quilt is jaw droppingly amazing!  Each balloon bouquet has 23 circles the size of a quarter!  The “strings” are embroidered with different colors of floss.  Oh, I’d love to have a quilt like this.  I may have to learn to applique–and live to be 120 years old!

Most of the quilts on the bed were from the 1930’s, so you know I couldn’t resist.  I snapped away as each quilt was revealed, and now you can enjoy them, too.

Somehow, I didn’t get a full view of this quilt, but I did get a close-up of the block.  Aren’t the colors amazingly bright!?!

Here’s a pretty Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt top.

And speaking of bright, how about this tulip quilt?

The blue centers in this Dresden Plate Quilt made it a very pretty thing.

It was finished as a summer coverlet.  I love the edge treatment.

You don’t often see the yellow green in the center of the Dresden Plate blocks in 1930’s quilts.  The cross-stitch embroidery in the intersections was also unusual.

This star quilt appears to be from the 1940’s.

Here’s a pretty tulip variation.

I’m guessing this is an older quilt, but it’s so hard to say when the fabrics used were solids.

It’s always interesting when you find a quilt with some of the fabrics completely faded out, like this one.

The hummingbird pattern shown here is one of my favorites.  It’s on my list of quilts to make someday!

Whirligig is another quilt I really like–and would like to make!

My gosh, someone used orange in this quilt.  What a bold woman she must have been!

This is an interesting Nine-Patch variation.

I’ve seen lots of vintage quilts with this combination of lavender and yellow/orange.

Lastly, this variation of the Nosegay was very interesting.  I’d not seen it before.  Thanks, Latimer, for sharing with us.

I decided to take a break from retirement (insert laugh track here) and take a booth at the Northwest Quilting Expo at the end of September.

It was fun to see all the samples hung up and the fabric displayed.  Thanks to Robin and Connie, my Beck and Call Girls, the booth looked great.  And they worked their tails off all weekend!

All the fabrics in the booth were designed by me, so that was kind of cool!

I got to do two lectures – one on using large scale prints and one on using fat quarters.

This woman had made a shirt from my fabrics.  I was delighted to see that!

The quilt displays were great.  This was the winning quilt.

And you know I’m just a cowgirl at heart, so I fell in love with this quilt.

Oh, my gosh, here’s the quilt that reminds me of the doors in Sweden!

Like this one…

Perhaps it was the orange in here, but I loved this one as well.

Here’s a close-up.  I love the strip piecing and the quilting on it was stunning.

I’m sorry this is blurry, but this was a lovely quilt.

Again, the quilting was amazing.

This quilt is from the Latimer Quilt and Textile Center.  If you’re familiar with Tillamook, Oregon and the Tillamook Cheese Factory, you’ll recognize their logo.

It was incredibly well done.

The program at Pomeroy Farms this year was Rebecca Anderson of Rebecca Ruth Designs.  She has an extensive knowledge of this history of aprons and an extensive collection of aprons–which she shared!  I hope you enjoy these photos.

Here’s Rebecca with two of her models, showing of pretty petal aprons.

More pretty hemlines.

Some full, circle aprons.

An interesting use of ric rack!  It’s used here to attach the panels of the apron skirt.

And here ric rack is used to join the top to the bottom.

This style really reminds me of my grandma.

And these terry cloth aprons are what my mom always wore!

My Grandma Ikey used a lot of bias tape–and so did the maker of this apron.

The woman who made this one took something as simple as bias tape and made it artistic.

But nothing beats ric rack for embellishment!

And have you heard of a technique called Chicken Scratch?  It was done on gingham, like these aprons.  My Grandma Kennedy did it on pillows.

Some pretty aprons from the 1920’s.  Tea, anyone?

Organza aprons were all the rage for hostesses in the 1950’s and 60’s.

These aprons are made from handkerchiefs.

And these are crocheted!

It was a wonderful day, and I loved seeing all the aprons.  Thank you!

I’m just back from a great week in Central Oregon, and now we have our two oldest grandchildren with us.  But, I have a free moment, so wanted to share a few more of the Pomeroy Show quilts with you.   I’m a sucker for scrappy quilts.  Here are some of my favorites from different eras.

We’ll start with the late 1800’s.

And these from the 1930’s.

And even these from the 1960’s!

And this great current one!

Last weekend I had a wonderful day of quilting fun and relaxation at the Pomeroy House Living History Farm.

Connie and Robin were there, too.  Really, that’s them in the photo below!

The old farm is such a wonderfully charming place for a quilt show.

I love how the put the quilts on the fences and buildings.

Luckily, the chickens had some shade–it was a very hot day!

Seeing these makes me want to drag all my quilts outside.

Oh, I’m glad I don’t have to wash like this!

Ah, more shade!

I don’t know if I took this picture for Bob because it’s a tractor or for me because it’s orange!

Oh, there’s Connie and Robin.  I knew I’d catch up with them again!

More photos of quilt to come–and all the aprons in the presentation!